Into the Abyss: How James Cameron's Historic Mission Compares to the First Mariana Trench Dive

On Sunday night, filmmaker James Cameron made history by becoming only the third person to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench--the deepest known part of Earth's oceans--and was the only person to do it solo. But the blockbuster director didn't embark on this mission just for kicks. Aboard the coffin-like cavity of his fluorescent green high-tech submarine--the DeepSea Challenger (the floor of the Mariana Trench is known as the Challenger Deep)--Cameron spent hours recording video and collecting samples for scientists on the surface to pour over and study. The results will be published in a future issue of National Geographic magazine; the organization co-sponsored the expedition.

It wasn't just money that Cameron needed (and he has a lot of it) to embark on this mission--he utilized the latest in modern technology as well. Considering that the first (and only, before yesterday) time a manned mission to the Mariana Trench was accomplished was in 1960, Cameron had quite a leg up on the equipment available to explorers Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard. I'll let you guess who was the one that brought 3D video cameras down to the bottom of the ocean. Here's how Cameron's DeepSea Challenger compares to the Bathyscaphe Trieste that took Walsh and Piccard down to Challenger Deep over half a century ago.

Photo Credit: Mark Thiessen, National Geographic

The DeepSea Challenger

24 ft long "vertical torpedo" that is positioned upright and rotates on its veritcal axis.